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New York Times Ends Its Paid Subscription Service
Mike writes "The New York Times has announced that it will end its paid Internet service in favor of making most of its Web site available for free. The hope is that this move will attract more readers and higher advertising revenue. 'The longer-term problem for publishers like the Times is that they must find ways to present content online rather than just transferring stories and pictures from the newspaper. Most U.S. news Web sites offer their contents for free, supporting themselves by selling advertising. One exception is The Wall Street Journal which runs a subscription-based Web site. TimesSelect generated about $10 million in revenue a year. Schiller declined to project how much higher the online growth rate would be without charging visitors.'"
I used to read the Times Editorial page once, twice, sometimes three times a week. Until Times Select. Then it was, "Krugman? Friedman? Who?" Putting the content behind that wall made the Times' columnists practically irrelevant. For better or worse, the Times has some of the most talked-about columnists in the country, and their importance evaporated almost instantly when the unwashed masses (me) could no longer read them. I, for one, am more than happy to look at a picture of a car or a book or whatever a few times a week if it means (in some small way) invigorating the national conversation.
... turning to the 3-D map, we see an unmistakable con
The question is whether they're going to free the crosswords. Not to shortz the rest of the paper... but that's what everyone really cares about.
"42"
Unfortunately their innovative Times Reader appears to be pay-only as of yet.
One would think that there are two sure-proof things NY Times could do to secure large audience for their advertisers.
1. Their image as a respect newspaper, not just NY, not just US, but world-wide. Their journalists are respected, and their content verified, their analysis intelligent.
2. Better presentation than the average site.
Well, Times Reader is that point 2. If they gave me the reader for free, I'll most likely to there for my shot of news and editorials, since it's simply better than browsing a web site.
And hence, the NY Times won't have to compete with the other blogs and sites as much as if they remained free only in-browser.
Personally I like to have the option to pay for no ads. As I do on slashdot (mind you the slashdot cost is very low).
Although these days there is less point paying for a single publication/site. NYTimes seems good, but as a non-citizen it was never enough to pay for...
For every expert, there is an equal and opposite expert. - Arthur C. Clarke
You could have anyway. Registgration is free, and if you get your back up about that, it'll take you about five minutes with Google to find a publically posted login and password that will work.
What's more important maybe is it sounds like they have opened up the archives. Maybe now if you want to find out about how good a job Donald Rumsfeld did in his first term as Defense Secretary in the Ford administration or want to track down details on CDCs suite against IBM, you can do so without spending a fortune.
Of yeah, and now I think we can read the columnists. that's a mixed blessing for sure, but Krugman's economic views are widely respected and it's annoying to have to wait for someone to break copyright and post them elsewhere.
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey